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August 06, 2014

Comments

Dr. Denita Benyshek

Thank you for the thoughtful and balanced consideration of happiness.

Chris Roberts

I agree that happiness is a much more worthy goal than angry action. Philanthropy and morality are things that follow on naturally from happiness and security. Worry and anger are very selfish thought processes attached to and the drive to act based on them is often selfishly based deep down. Not that we should avoid anger, but that a higher self-esteem frees us up to think about the people around us and what we can give back.

As game developers, however, we're in a fairly unique situation in that our passion often lies in our creations. This also ties our value and self-worth to our work. In the current situation where so many indies are struggling to make ends meet it can be difficult for devs to value themselves when the value our players place on our games can often be so low. To dedicate your life and studies to being the best developer you can be and then finding that people are unwilling to spend $2 to share your creation can be difficult. That requires a huge amount of self belief and can have a huge impact on motivation and happiness.

Your post came at a time these thoughts have been at the front of my mind - returning from a hiatus from development so I just felt I should share those points.

Keep on loving what you do

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